Will college football, beer sales form winning team?

Tags

As anyone who follows college football knows, the foundation of the sport is shifting seismically. From compensating athletes to conference realignment to a new playoff crowning a national champion, this is not your parents' "amateur" athletics.

But the changes aren't happening just to coaches or athletic departments. The gameday, on-campus fan experience is rapidly evolving, too, and one growing trend could bring a significant new stream of revenue to colleges and universities, both in Jackson and beyond.

Millsaps College this year will partner with Jackson's Lucky Town Brewing Company to host a "beer garden," a designated area where beer can be sold, at the Division III school's home games. If the move proves successful, the concept could very well catch on throughout the college-football landscape.

Reports state about two-dozen Division I schools - none from the Southeastern Conference - allow beer sales at home games in on-campus stadiums, while another 11 - again, none from the SEC - permit it in off-campus venues. This is a remarkable change from just a decade ago, when it was hard to imagine college-athletics administrators or the NCAA going along with such a concept. But we once seemed stuck with the Bowl Championship Series, too.

Funny how this "shifting seismically" thing works.

College football isn't a big business - it's a gargantuan business. But it's not immune from missing out on revenue. This era of conference television networks and cable-TV sports packages that enable viewers to watch practically any game they want, to say nothing of the cost of a ticket, parking, concessions and gas to get to Oxford, Starkville or Hattiesburg from outside those areas, means many fans are getting the gameday experience not from the bleachers or tailgate zones but their living rooms.

But Millsaps athletics director Josh Brooks feels the beer garden will create an alluring aspect of the gameday experience not easily replicated at home - friends and new acquaintances bonding in an on-campus setting that takes full advantage of the college football atmosphere.

"It's going to help with revenue generation, obviously, but I think mainly it's going to keep people attending, keeping the social scene," he told SB Nation.

This is, of course, a sensitive issue. College athletics has for so long not trumpeted selling beer or other alcoholic beverages at games because of the message it might send to fans, many of whom aren't yet at legal drinking age. Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving worry about the prospect of thousands of already emotional fans getting into their cars after games intoxicated.

Those certainly are valid concerns that need addressing. But the distance colleges have kept from alcohol at games to this point definitely hasn't stopped people from sneaking beer and who knows what else into games. I've witnessed a sea of empty beer and liquor bottles strewn throughout the stands after college games I've attended, drinks no doubt consumed by underage students and legal-age fans alike. I stuck to Coca-Cola, for the record.

Brooks and others who support beer sales say beer gardens and other such methods allow the schools to better control alcohol consumption at games and will discourage fans from stuffing their own supply into their pants pockets and beneath their shirts before passing through the turnstiles.

And, of course, the simple fact is people like to buy and consume beer. For better or worse, an idea like the one Millsaps is introducing probably wouldn't be as potentially lucrative if it were a milk garden or tea garden. The likes of MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch, whatever their daily or yearly financial ups and downs, don't lack customers, and never will.

College football is going to look a lot different in the next five to 10 years. Things that once seemed impossible will become commonplace. It looks like beer sales at games is one of them. Let's just hope it can be done in as safe and responsible a manner as possible while bringing in more money to the schools.